Storage Area Networks (SANs) have been utilized for many enterprises that are seeking cost effective ways to both protect the data as well as minimizing the overall storage costs. A Storage Area Network (SAN) is a high-speed sub-network of shared storage devices. In a SAN's architecture, all storage devices available to all servers on a LAN or WAN. Because stored data does not reside directly on any of a network's servers, server power is utilized for business applications, and network capacity is released to the end user. Often, ancillary protocols and management tools are needed to provide the flexibility required by many servers sharing storage devices in a SAN. Some management tools are designed to monitor unauthorized tampering such as removal of components, change of volume ownerships and the like. Some devices (e.g. storage array systems or the like) in a SAN may maintain simple log files utilized by database, communications, or transaction applications to store a history of operations.
However, there is no method to detect condition changes of certain components during a power off cycle of the devices coupled to a SAN. For example, when a user encounters problems on a storage array system, the user may request help from a technical support organization. Often, the technical support organization tries to isolate the problem through various methods (e.g. checking configurations, management tool log file, operating system log file, or the like). However, when the user changed the storage array system setup such as removal of Customer Replacement Unit (CRU) of the storage array while the storage array system was down (i.e. during the power off cycle), the information of the change may not be available unless the user provides the information. Thus, when the user cannot provide such information for some reason, isolating the problem may take time and efforts. There are several conditions that may not be detected by conventional methods during the power off cycle of a storage array system coupled to a SAN. Examples of the conditions may include: 1) any component in the storage array system is removed, switched, or swapped 2) any component changes such as configuration, enabled features, firmware levels and others in the storage array system 3) loss of resources or changes in resource ownership 4) changes in cabling SANs.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a method to detect condition changes during a power off cycle of a device coupled to a SAN. It would be also desirable to provide a method to detect such condition changes of a device without requiring additional hardware, management tools or the like.